Archive for June, 2009

I started Wednesday (after work at least) by heading off to the brief staff meeting at Colton Mill before the night out. I wasn’t planning to attend any of it but who could miss the chance to grab a pint with Eric and Felix?

Afterwards I continued on my way over to York for the monthly Brights meetup which is always entertaining if a little sparsely attended and threw arround some very interesting ideas as co-organiser Gilly has some very similar ideas to my own (which is probably a very dangerous thing lol).

Last Tuesday we sat down for our final planning meeting of the academic year as we prepared for the next one. It was a likely to have rather in vain giving we were missing half the committee but never the less with union deadlines arriving we had plenty of items to discuss.

It ended up a rather circular discussion with the odd bit of productive points made but on the whole we just went over the same topics again and again. For 3 hours. Fun stuff.

Monday saw saw myself and Si, along with Sarann, Michelle and Moz head to the Deer Park for one final dinner before we all dispersed.

I don’t think I’ve eaten that much food in a long, long time. Actually when I say a long time it was probably since we went to all you can eat buffet at Spice Quarter for the Atheist Society End of Year Ball but it would well be that I ate even more tonight making my way through loaded jacket skins to start, a full mixed grill for the main course and an ice cream sundae afterwards.

I would feel it was excessive but everyone else ate almost as much. That said I am still letting it settle now lol.

As part of our social life on a budget, we headed out to KFC on Sunday for a spot of dinner, especially given the new wraps are out. I didn’t like have a wrap or anything but I did take a look at the wraps that Craig and Zoe got which I feel was adventurous enough.

Afterwards we headed to The Podger with Craig having a quick pint before heading back home leaving me and Felix to have a far more drawn out one discussing sex, money, rock ‘n roll, etc (at least when he wasn’t flirting with a certain someone else on the phone – the cheek!).

On Friday we headed out from work to grab a few drinks as as I am heading out the door and Darren has only fairly recently arrived at Open Door so we thought it high time we organise some kind of outing to the pub before I left.

Of course a few beers turned into a few more beers (as was the underlying plan when it came down to it 😀 ) until the night began to draw in at which point people started coming up with really silly excuses like “I’m quite ill, on quite a bit of medication for it and I shouldn’t be mixing it with alcohol.” What else should we expect from the cotton wool culture of modern society though?

We ended up with just me, Nick and Dean (my boss and the MD respectively) in the gay district at the bottom of town. Everyone denies they were the one leading us in that direction but we somehow ended up there never the less so decided to head into The Elbow Room which I’ve never actually been in before.

Turns out it’s a rather cool place, it really reminds me of the bar in The O.C. with the indie band playing in the corner and a really laid back attitude in the middle of a sea of over-trendyness that surrounds it. Well worth a visit.

Having left work at about 6 last night I headed off to meet Nicola for the usual Thursday night HAG activities. It was a mildly successful night, there were a few people out so a bit better (or perhaps worse) than last week.

Finally pulled up outside my house at about 9pm when I got a text from Zoe inviting me down to the pub. Of course this left me with no option but to head out again (after all I hadn’t been to the pub since Tuesday at this point!)

It’s tough getting through these long nights but somehow I manage it 😀 .

Last night saw the first of the end of year planning meetings for Atheist Society. It has been a while since we have had a real hardcore planning meeting but last night we bashed out ideas for next year for a solid three hours and will no doubt be doing something similar next week too.

We got plenty of good ideas down and the vision for next year is starting to take shape so it should be another great year for the society (as if we have anything else :p ).

Afterwards we headed down to The Old Bar for the usual Tuesday night social which was well attended given so many people have gone home. Plus George was there so it was basically win win.

On Monday myself and Michelle headed out to the Deer Park to celebrate a number of different things including someone having received her teaching application (this is a landmark achievement for the Royal Mail).

It occured to me though that are days at the Deer Park maybe be looking limited. If you include the fact that I am spending the weekend after next in Warwick for the AHS national conference I only have 9 days left in Roundhay!

I will certainly miss it, there aren’t any overly nice pubs on my door step next year though there are plenty of cheap ones such as the Library and town just a few minutes walk away. In any case though I think a few trips out to the Deer Park at some point may be in order.

I’ve seen a lot of posts, comments, tweets etc, about the results from Sunday night.

I’m sure you’re aware of what has happened but in case some of you aren’t, the results for the European parliament were announced with Labour getting trashed and losing Wales for the first time since 1918 and more importantly the British National Party won two seats.

UKIP managed to come second, beating Labour and nobody really seems to be concerned about this. I can’t imagine why, UKIP are a ridicious one policy party and that is putting it nicely. Why we would want these people in power I cannot imagine. UKIP leader Nigel Farage also worries me, I didn’t think it was possible for anyone to be more smug than Mr. O’Shea but apparently it is possible 😉 .

The real backlash though has been against the BNP getting elected – in no less than two regions.

Personally I am sick and tired of people saying “oh this is awful, we shouldn’t have a system which allows people like that to get elected.” Of course you expect these stupid comments from Islamic extremists but they are coming from people I considered smart, educated people.

Of course the BNP should be allowed to run, we live in a free expression democracy and if we’re going to tolerate the Muslims we are going to tolerate the fascists, that’s just being fair. It isn’t a problem because if you’re saying really wacky far out there things nobody is going to vote for you.

What people are actually worried about therefore is that people are actually voting for the BNP and in large numbers – almost a million people voted for them in the recent elections. A million people!

No wonder given that nobody is even really discussing the issue. Everyone says “oh, how terrible, it’s the BNP” but most people don’t even know what the BNP policies are. Most people think they know BNP policy on immigration (you probably don’t though, it’s a bit different to what you think) but do you know their policy on the environment for example?

Probably not because it never comes up for discussion. The BNP are banned from campus at Leeds and if anyone else was watching the unbiased BBC coverage on Sunday night you will note that despite speaking to most of the party heads they never spoke to Nick Griffin or anyone from the BNP. How are we supposed to make informed choices if we can’t even discuss these issues?

The discussions that are going on are about how people could vote for the BNP. A protest vote? They just really hate Labour? What nobody seems to have suggested is that people actually like the BNP policies.

Maybe some people want safer streets. A stronger NHS. Less bureaucracy in the civil service. A cleaner environment. Maybe people like the fact the BNP are campaigning on local issues that actually mean something to people. Maybe people want a party that isn’t using our money to pay for duck islands or moat cleaning.

So rather than going off on one about how awful it is that the BNP got in and criticising everyone else for being such a weak opposition, I would like to congratulate the BNP on a hard earned success. If you don’t like it, go out and campaign for someone else.

I voted Labour, by the way.

I think we have perfected Sunday nights.

It now starts at the pub, then we go for some food, then we go back to the pub.

It’s a winner 😀 . Actually it then involves even more food as afterwards you have to the KFC to pick up some ice cream as well but that just adds to the whole experience. You really can’t beat a final evening of food and drink before returning to work on Monday morning.

Unfortunately though our landlord turned up as I was walking out the door asking if we could clean the whole house by tomorrow as he had a potential tenant coming round to look at it which resulted in me having to do some cleaning when I got back. Luckily Michelle and Norm took care of most of it while I was out though so there wasn’t that much to do.